This application claims the benefit of Korean Application No. 2002-42622, filed Jul. 19, 2002, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a water distributing pipe for ice making devices of refrigerators, and more particularly, to a water distributing pipe for ice making devices of refrigerators, which is capable of preventing water from being splashed when the water is fed to an ice cube tray.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is well known to those skilled in the art, an automatic ice making device is provided in a freezer compartment of a refrigerator, and freezes water fed from an external water supply source to make ice cubes. After the ice cubes are made in the automatic ice making device, the ice cubes are stacked and stored in an ice container which is installed in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, through an ice feeding action.
As shown in FIG. 1, an ice making device includes an ice cube tray 103, a drive unit 104, and a sensing lever 106. The ice cube tray 103 is rotatably mounted to a support member 102 which is interiorly fixed to an upper wall of a freezer compartment 101. The drive unit 104 rotates the ice cube tray 103. The sensing lever 106 is connected to the drive unit 104 and senses an amount of ice cubes stored in an ice container 105. A water supply pipe 108 is mounted to a body 107 of the refrigerator, and extends from a water source provided at an outside of the body 107 to an inside of the freezer compartment 101 to supply water to the ice making device. The water supply pipe 108 passes through the external surface of a rear wall of the body 107, and an insulating material provided between outer and inner surfaces of a top wall of the body 107, and extends to the inside of the freezer compartment 101. The end of the water supply pipe 108 in the freezer compartment 101 is connected to a water discharging pipe 109 which extends toward the ice cube tray 103.
In the conventional ice making device, the end of the water discharging pipe 109 is spaced from a top of the ice cube tray 103. As shown in FIG. 2, the water supplied from the water supply pipe 108 flows through a connecting part 201 while strongly and vertically falling along the inner surface of a water discharging part 202. Further, the water is excessively supplied to a specified area of the ice cube tray 103, so the water that strongly falls to the ice cube tray 103 may be splashed or may overflow. The problem becomes more serious due to air existing in the water supply pipe 108 or water discharging pipe 109 or irregular water pressure when the water supply pipe 108 is directly connected to an external water tap. The conventional water discharging pipe 109 for the ice making devices has another problem that splashed water drops are frozen as the splashed water drops contact an area around the ice making device, so the area around the ice making devices become dirty. The conventional water discharging pipe 109 for the ice making devices has a further problem that the water filled in the ice cube tray may overflow, so an amount of the water which is practically frozen is undesirably small, thus an amount of the ice cubes is reduced.
Accordingly, a water distributing pipe for ice making devices of refrigerators is provided, which has an improved construction capable of preventing water supplied to an ice cube tray from splashing or overflowing.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
To accomplish the above and other objects, a water distributing pipe for an ice making device of a refrigerator which comprises an ice cube tray designed such that a top portion is open to receive water into the ice cube tray and opposite ends thereof respectively, are rotatably supported by an inside of a freezer compartment and a water supply pipe supplying water to the ice cube tray, and the water distributing pipe connected to an end of the water supply pipe, distributing water to the ice cube tray, wherein the water distributing pipe comprises a connecting part connected to the water supply pipe, a water discharging part extending from the connecting part and discharging water to the ice cube tray, and a projecting part provided in the water discharging part distributing the supplied water.
Another object is to provide the water distributing pipe, which is cut at an end thereof to have a plurality of cutouts having a predetermined shape, with a plurality of thin protrusions defined by the cutouts and extending from the end of the distributing pipe.